I've been wanting to do a PCOS episode for ages now, but frankly didn’t know where to even begin. There’s a lot that’s overlooked about polycystic ovary syndrome, even though it affects one in ten women of reproductive age. It’s prime Overlooked territory, right?

And then I found Elle Murata, a women’s health researcher, and after talking to her, I learned that the impact of PCOS goes way beyond the ovaries, and its role in brain health is even more overlooked and understudied (anxiety, depression and cognitive impact come up during this conversation).

​Elle Murata is a sixth-year PhD student in neuroendocrinology at the University of California Santa Barbara, and she studies the relationship between hormones and the brain. She also has PCOS herself and when she was diagnosed and essentially dismissed in the same appointment, she made a power move - she became her own research subject.

Elle recorded audio diaries for every test she conducted on herself, from MRIs to finger prick blood tests, just for this episode. She also touched on the connection between PCOS and endometriosis, another condition she researches, and one we've covered on Overlooked before. ​

Elle is from a new generation of women’s health researchers who make me a bit more hopeful that we'll find solutions to these long overlooked conditions.

More links on PCOS:

​From the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)​

​Polycystic ovary syndrome linked with cognitive decline at midlife​

​Redefining PCOS: A Shift from the Ovaries to the Brain​

The next workshop of First Person Health, my storytelling class, will take place May 7th, and registration closes May 1st. In this class I teach the kind of storytelling techniques we use our episodes, so that you can tell your own health story in a powerful way. Learn more and sign up here:

What else is going on:

It’s such a tough moment right now, in all respects - it's a struggle to stay positive some days, so I look for micro reasons for optimism:

🏆 I’m a full-on Pitt fanatic and love that there’s a women’s health moment in almost every episode in this season. Most recent: Dr Robby giving the ER a mini lecture on how heart attacks in women are missed. ​

(I’ve started re-watching the original ER too - I know, I know, it's madness).

💔 I needed a change from women’s health, so I entered a competition called Audio Flux and made a three minute piece of audio about something else entirely: my kids. It was full of grief and joy in equal parts, which… yeah, that’s me now, I guess. I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere but it was just cool to just make it, and helped settle my emotions about my youngest going to college soon.

What's your micro-reason to stay optimistic?

Wishing you the best of health,

Golda